Racket Sports Played Indoors with Poor Acoustics: How Dangerous to Tinnitus / Hearing?

How dangerous is it?

I played a sport called Pickle Ball indoors in a small, all brick walled warehouse with no windows and the doors were closed. We were completely enclosed in the room. The floor was hard court/concrete. There was no sound damping inside at all and it was a fairly small place - just large enough for 2 Pickle Ball courts. Pickle courts are smaller than tennis courts and are only 20' x 44' each and paddles are made out of graphite or a hard composite plastic; the ball is basically a whiffle ball.

The sound of hitting a ball off a paddle is probably around 80-90 dB each hit outdoors with good players like these who can really small the ball. But speech and everything else seemed WAY louder in this place. There is also a lot of yelling and the usual release of energy which is also very loud in this place. Screams sounded like sirens at times. In between games I'd stand against the wall at least 10-15 feet away from players and the sound was still super loud and echo-y.

Is racquetball pretty much the same way?

We played for 2.5 hours. The noise isn't consistently loud 24/7 but there are very loud hits about every 5-10 seconds or so since there were two courts and eight players total at a time. So loud noises every few seconds. It was hard to hear the score called and we had to raise our voices.

Did not have my earplugs or my phone since they were several blocks away and I didn't feel like walking in heavy rain to get them at the time. Ears ringing a bit more than usual. Permanent damage or spike?

 

I would say that you got an spike. Wait a bit to see if it subsides. Protect your hearing next time.

 

Here's a photo of the place I played:



It's a pretty small 'loft style' industrial warehouse space. When the ball was hit every few seconds it nearly sounds like loud gunshots. Sound is just bouncing all over the place. They put 3-4 sound damping things over the walls and it didn't seem to help at all. Grunts and screams were also piercing and insanely loud. I could barely hear any scores called out during play and my ears seemed a bit muted for at least 24 hours afterwards.

As you can see, it's hard court/concrete flooring and all brick walls. It felt like playing with a bunch of mirrors since sounds were loud everywhere.

Hope there wasn't permanent damage.